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Old Stores

Merry Christmas from the waiter
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These vintage Spanish Christmas cards reveal clues about the past

This small collections of Spanish vintage Christmas cards celebrate Spain's traditional occupations, but look closely at the design details of each card. These beautifully ornate illustrations give us a fascinating insight into the bygone era of these time-honoured professions, especially into those that are now obsolete.
The kiosk at Bilbao metro
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The death of the Spanish kiosk and the invasion of the biased newsfeed

Sergio is the 4th generation of his family to run this kiosk by Opera, and just as his ancestors did, he stocks every national newspaper. There are no echo-chamber algorithms here – not even the positioning of each newspaper is strategic. At Sergio's news stand, you can see how the rest of the world thinks.
The last survivor
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Vallecas: The rebel town of Madrid

Vallecas is a working-class neighbourhood with an unstoppable fire in its belly. It emerged out of a slum, only to be beaten back to the bones again by the most brutal pummelling the Spanish Civil War could give. Since then, this hard-left barrio has become a close-knit community and home to thousands of immigrants from all around the world, making it one of the most mesmerising corners of Madrid.
The tiny entrance to a labyrinth of storage units
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Eight eccentric museum-worthy collections found only in El Rastro

There are few better ways to spend a Sunday in Madrid than strolling around El Rastro, but if you don't have time to explore this 400-year-old market as many times as we have (possibly into three figures), then let us help you hit the ground running with seven of our most eccentric finds.
Antonio on the emergency phone
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The last toy hospital in Spain

Once upon a time in Madrid, in a neighbourhood named after the Pacific Ocean, there was a man named Antonio, who kept the child inside all of us alive. The Toy Hospital’s customers aren’t typically children. Antonio’s customers are adults – some are toy collectors or savvy antiques dealers, but many of them are nostalgic souls whose childhood is preserved in the peculiar object clutched in Antonio’s paint-stained hands.
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The thriving scrap metal collectors

Mayorista de Chatarra is a local scrap metal dealer in Lavapiés that’s been going strong for over 100 years, and especially for the last ten.